Course in Political Miracles: Lesson 21

"I open to love by seeing things in a different light."
I have learned that my truest, deepest nature is love. I have also learned that if I constrict my mind into the very unnatural state of holding resentments or grievances, I waste enormous amounts of creative energy as well as invite people to turn against me.

What I may not yet have mastered is the mechanism for re-expanding my mind from grievances and resentments back to my natural state of love. That mechanism is: seeing things in a different light.

With this week's lesson, I remind myself it is my mind that determines how I perceive and how I interpret what I perceive. My mind is capable of perceiving something a million and one different ways and devising a million and one different interpretations of each of those perceptions. My emotional reaction follows according to my perception and interpretation.

But I don't have to get caught up in any of the devices of my mind. I can literally train my mind to see things in a different light if I am starting to hold grievances or feel resentment.

This is the mind discipline I wish to practice this week. I am devoting this week to intense effort to catch every grievance or resentment and change my mind immediately.

When I awaken each day I will spend a few minutes visualizing situations in which I might be tempted to hold grievances or feel resentment. I see myself changing my reactions by instead asking myself such questions as:

"How can I see this in a different light?"

"How can I see this person in a different light?"

"How can I see this situation in a different light?"

During the day, every time I find myself beginning to hold a grievance or beginning to feel resentment, I ask very specifically:

"How can I see (name specific person) in a different light?"

"How can I see (name specific situation) in a different light?"

"How can I see (name specific place) in a different light?"

There is always another way of seeing things such that I am lifted out of resentment and grievances and back into my natural state of love. This does not mean I am pretending the mistakes of others do not exist. Nor does it mean I am condoning force, fraud, dishonesty or immorality. It means I am learning to keep my own consciousness in the most efficient and appealing state.

Then at the end of each day when I retire for the day I spend a few minutes rejoicing that I don't have to lower my level of consciousness based on what I perceive outside of myself. I rejoice that I can always see things in a different light.



The device which more deeply prepares freedom lovers for success, A Course in Miracles , talks about our ultimate need to free ourselves from every kind of slavery:

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.



Also available free of charge online:
Course in Relationship Miracles